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A sort-of memoir

Los Angeles Magazine, a sophisticated West-Coast glossy, has just put Hannibal and Me on its “reading list” for January.

I’m in the non-fiction category, obviously. More interesting is perhaps the one-line description they’ve given me. I still struggle to say in one breath what my book is; so I’m endlessly curious how other people do it in one breath.

The editors at LA Mag went with:

Hannibal—remember the guy who invaded Rome on elephants two thousand-plus years ago?—is the starting point for this sort-of memoir from the West Coast correspondent of The Economist.

Meeting Andreas Kluth, The Economist’s West Coast correspondent, in person, chances are your spidey sense will remain in its off position. What a charming and intelligent man, you’ll think.

Yet his book “Hannibal and Me” offers a rare and chilling glimpse into a tormented mind ravaged by dissociative identity disorder. Each of its 336 pages serves as a shocking reminder how, in spite of significant strides made in recent years as far as educating the public, the stigma of mental illness still precludes seemingly well-adjusted members of our society from seeking the treatment they need.

Yes, CQ and I think they’ll also say, “Mr. Kluth stops just a tad short of embracing the now oh so chic idea that Hanny and the boys turned right at the Pyrennes by mistake because they were really heading toward an EST Primal Scream clinic on Wilshire Blvd.”

… Although the author obliquely addresses the “wrong turn” hypothesis in describing how an elephant named Dumbo accidentally stepped on the only GPS receiver the Carthaginians had brought along, it is unclear whether this amounts to an all-out endorsement of the hypothesis. However, Mr Kluth then proceeds to elaborate at length and with palpable enthusiasm on the theory that Hannibal embarked on his spectacular Italian crusade solely to impress Jodie Foster.

. . . indeed, Mr. Kluth’s trenchant analysis has put paid to the essentially intellectually bankrupt theory that Hannibal’s intentions were fundamentally warlike. Although he is coy about whether he has teased out a definitive diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, he does make the point that Hannibal was known to greet conquered Roman generals with the queries, “Dost thou seeest what I sayeth?” and “Dost thou talketh to me?”